Software Process And Measurement Cast

The Software Process and Measurement Cast 423 builds  on our interview from last week with Philip Lew.  This week we lead with a discussion of measuring quality.  Quality is related to risk, productivity and customer satisfaction.   Next Jeremy Berriault brings his QA Corner to the Cast to discuss the impact of certifications in software testing.  Want a bit of foreshadowing?  The answer is not cut and dry. Visit Jermey’s new blog at https://jberria.wordpress.com/ The Software Sensei, Kim Pries , answers a question he was recently asked by one his students, “why do we have so many computer languages?” This a question I have often asked, usually when I have to learn the basics of a new language. Reach out to Kim on LinkedIn. Jon M Quigley, brings his column, the Alpha and Omega of Product Development to the cast.  In this installment, the 2nd in a 3 part series on configuration management, Jon continues the cycle of configuration management which begins with requirements and travels across the whole lifecycle.

The Software Process and Measurement Cast 422 features our interview with Phil Lew.  Phil and I talked about the topic of Agile risk management.  We explored how risk can be managed in Agile projects and the barriers to effective risk management.  As important as the mechanics of Agile risk management are, Philip and I also explored the relationship between quality and risk, which may be more important in the long run. Phil’s Bio Philip Lew is the CEO at XBOSoft. XBOSoft’s software QA and software testing services help their clients deliver products to market faster and with higher quality; an ever increasing challenge as software becomes more complex and platforms increase. As a Corporate Executive, Development Manager, Product Manager and Software Engineer, Philip has managed teams to tackle broken processes, develop solutions to difficult problems, and coached others be leaders, managers, and experts. He leverages his academic background in operations research, industrial engineering, and computer science

The Software Process and Measurement Cast 421 features our essay on vanity metrics.  Vanity metrics make people feel good, but are less useful for making decisions about the business.  The essay discusses how to recognize vanity metrics and the risks of falling prey to their allure. We will also have columns form Steve Tendon with another chapter in his Tame The Flow: Hyper-Productive Knowledge-Work Performance, The TameFlow Approach and Its Application to Scrum and Kanban, published by J Ross (buy a copy here). Steve and I talked about Chapter 13.  Finally, Gene Hughson will anchor the cast with an entry from his Form Follows Function Blog.  Gene and I started talking about leadership patterns and antipatterns. Re-Read Saturday News In this week’s re-read of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team  by Patrick Lencioni (Jossey-Bass, Copyright 2002, 33rd printing), we conclude Part Three with the sections titled the Last Stand, Flack, Heavy Lifting, and Rally. I suspect we have 3 or 4 weeks left before moving to the

The Software Process and Measurement Cast 420 features our interview with John Hunter.  John is a SPaMCAST alumni; John first appeared on SPaMCAST 226 to talk about why management matters.  In this podcast John returns to discuss building capability in the organization and  understanding the impact of  variation.  We also talked Deming and why people tack the word improvement on almost anything!    John’s Bio John Hunter has served as an information technology program manager for the Office of Secretary of Defense Quality Management Office, the White House Military Office and the American Society for Engineering Education. In 2013, he published his first book - Management Matters: Building Enterprise Capability. John created and operates one of the first, and still one of the most popular, management resources on the internet.  He continues to aid managers in their efforts to improve their organizations with an emphasis on software development and leveraging the internet.  His blog is widely recognized as a

The Software Process and Measurement Cast 419 features our essay on eight quick hints on dealing with stand-up meetings on distributed teams. Distributed Agile teams require a different level of care and feeding than a co-located team in order to ensure that they are as effective as possible. Remember an update on the old adage: distributed teams, you can’t live with them and you can’t live without them.   We also have a column from the Software Sensei, Kim Pries.  In this installment, Kim talks about the  Fullan Change Model. In the Fullan Change Model, all change stems from a moral purpose.  Reach out to Kim on LinkedIn. Jon M Quigley brings the next installment of his Alpha and Omega of Product Development to the podcast.  In this installment, Jon begins a 3 part series on configuration management.  Configuration management might not be glamorous but it is hugely important to getting work done with quality.  One of the places you can find Jon is at Value Transformation LLC. Anchoring the cast this week is

The Software Process and Measurement Cast 418 features our interview with Larry Cooper.  Larry and I talked about his project, The Agility Series.  The series is providing the community an understanding of how Agile is applied and how practitioners are interpreting practices and principles. Reminder: Schedule Change for Vacation, Travel and Holiday Last week I was in Sweden for the  Øredev conference with a day of sightseeing thrown in. New listeners joining from the conference: WELCOME. The trip was great, and the conference was awesome and mind-expanding.  I will publish a review soon.  Brazil and “Métricas 2016” is next followed immediately by the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States.  This is the long way of saying that I will be publishing on an every other week basis through November 27th.  We will be back to weekly posting in December.   Larry Cooper’s BioLarry Cooper is a Project Executive in the public and private sectors in Canada and the USA and holds over 20 industry certifications in Agile,

The Software Process and Measurement Cast 417 discusses the six elements of business stories.  These six elements are required for effective business stories.  We also tackle whether each of those elements are equally important in telling the different types of stories spun in a business environment. Steve Tendon joins the SPaMCAST this week to discuss Chapter 12 in Tame The Flow: Hyper-Productive Knowledge-Work Performance, The TameFlow Approach and Its Application to Scrum and Kanban, published by J Ross (buy a copy here).   We discussed the Herbie and Kanban. The story of Herbie provides a great metaphor for the flow of work through an organization and how it can be improved. Visit Steve at www.tendon.net. We cap this edition of the Software Process and Measurement Cast with a visit to the QA Corner with Jeremy Berriault. Jeremy and I discussed the Samsung Note 7 and testing. While we may not have to test lithium-ion batteries professionally, we can extract lessons from this scenario on risk and testing! C

The Software Process and Measurement Cast features our interview with Kirk Botula on capability.  Kirk makes the argument that capability is crucial for organizational health and agility. Kirk Botula is the CEO of the CMMI® Institute, the home of the globally-adopted capability improvement framework that guides organizations in high-performance operations. Botula is a global growth company executive whose career has been focused on advancing the common good through the commercialization of technology. Prior to CMMI Institute, Botula served as President of Confluence, a global financial technology firm with operations in North America, EMEA and Asia. During his tenure, Confluence became the leading provider in its space achieving market share exceeding 70% in North America and 20% globally, while delivering the industry leading NPS of 40. Botula also served at BNY Mellon, Compunetix, and as a strategist to a variety of nonprofit and for-profit organizations. He has a BFA and MSIA from Carnegie Mellon Universit

The Software Process and Measurement Cast features four columns.  We begin with our essay on recognizing risk and risk tolerance.  Any discussion of risk begins with acknowledging that risk exists and then recognizing specific risks.  Once we know risks exist we need to determine which risks we care about. Risk tolerance affects how everyone in an organization behaves. Kim Pries the Software Sensei discusses change models, focusing on the Kotter model of change.  Kim discusses how change models can be used for hardware, software, processes and procedures.   Gene Hughson brings his wonderful Form Follows Function Blog the podcast.  In this installment, Gene and I discuss All Aboard the Innovation Band Wagon. We talked a lot about how to define innovation AND why innovation and change is powerful. Jon M Quigley anchors the cast with the third installment in a three-part arc on requirements in his  “The Alpha-Omega of Product Development” column. This week Jon discusses managing requirements. Re-Read Saturday N

The Software Process and Measurement Cast features our interview with Marcus Hammarberg. We often think of Agile as a tool to build or maintain software. In some cases, people have recognized the applicability of Agile and lean techniques in other parts of the business.  In even rarer circumstances people, like Marcus, have found a way to use Agile techniques to have a huge impact in the real world. Marcus tells use how he was able to use Agile and lean techniques and philosophy to save a clinic and more importantly to change lives of real people.  It is an amazing and uplifting story. Marcus’s Bio Get agile to work in practice - is Marcus’s motto. This has led him to take interest in all kind of things: Lean, TDD, Kanban, Specification by example, Node, Continuous Delivery, Nancy, and Koa. Marcus spent 2 years working for the Salvation Army in Indonesia to help the health services there to become more effective. Marcus has also, written Kanban in Action (http://bit.ly/theKanbanBook) and is writing another bo

The Software Process and Measurement Cast 413 features our essay on Scaling Agile and Management Styles.  This essay builds on our recent discussion of servant leadership. It is not as simple as adding teams or building a hierarchy. Steve Tendon joins the SPaMCAST this week to discuss Chapter 11 in Tame The Flow: Hyper-Productive Knowledge-Work Performance, The TameFlow Approach and Its Application to Scrum and Kanban, published J Ross (buy a copy here).   We discussed the concept of throughput accounting.  A powerful concept that that focuses on the delivery of value through the overall process. Visit Steve at www.tendon.net. We cap this edition of the Software Process and Measurement Cast with a visit to the QA Corner with Jeremy Berriault. Jeremy discussed the impact of testing tools. There are significant plusses for using tools if you don’t let the tools use you! Connect with Jeremy on Linkedin.   Re-Read Saturday News We continue the read/re-read of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni

The Software Process and Measurement Cast 412 features our discussion of XP Explained, Second Edition with Steven Adams.  It was a great talk that helped me understand why the book has (and continues to have) such a large impact on how I view Agile and software development. Steve lives in the San Francisco Bay Area (a.k.a, Silicon Valley) where he has a successful career in software development.  Steve has worked for Hewlett Packard, Access Systems Inc,, Trilliant Inc., and Sony Mobile Communications; plus has consulted at Cisco Systems.  Steve has a computer science degree from California State University at Chico, learned software project management at Hewlett-Packard and, in 2009, started his Agile journey with Sony Ericsson.  Steve enjoys listening to technical podcasts, and SpamCast was one of the first and is a favorite!  Steve is also an avid bicyclist (road) and is on track to log over 3,500 miles in 2016. Blog: https://sadams510.wordpress.com/Twitter: @stevena510 Re-Read Saturday News We begin the r

The Software Process and Measurement Cast 411 includes four columns!  The first is our thoughts on servant leadership. A servant leader facilitates collaboration not only by creating a learning environment but also by helping the team to establish a vision and goals.  Servant leadership is a powerful tool to unlock the ability of teams or groups to deliver value. Many of the links between servant leadership and Agile are because servant leadership enables several of the principles in the Agile Manifesto, but servant leadership doesn’t work in every scenario. This essay will explore the origins of servant leadership, its ties with Agile and when to apply a servant leadership approach. Jon M Quigley anchors the cast with the second installment in a three-part arc on requirements in his  “The Alpha-Omega of Product Development” column. This week Jon discusses managing requirements. Gene Hughson brings his Form Follows Function blog to the Software Process and Measurement Cast.  In this visit, Gene discusses his

In Software Process and Measurement Cast 410, we feature our interview with Jessica Long.  Jessica and I discussed storytelling. I find that storytelling is a useful tool to help individuals, teams, and organizations.  Projects can use stories to generate user stories and as a tool in retrospectives.  Stories are also a tool in generating a vision of the future in organizational transformations.  Those are just a few of the multitude of uses for storytelling in changing how value is delivered! Jessica and I will both be presenting on using stories at the Agile Philly, Agile Tour 2016 on October 10th.  If you are in the Philadelphia area please register and attend! Jessica’s bio:Jess Long is an Agile Coach, a writer, a speaker and a mother with a passion for driving meaningful stories across multiple iterations in all facets of life. Transforming Corporate America and living to tell about it is no small feat. She keeps some level of sanity by finding humor in otherwise absurd situations. Twitter: https://twitt

Special Note - SPAMCAST 409 was due to be posted last week, but bad things happened to my main computer and my backup decided to air-gap itself from the Internet.  That said, #409 is going up a week later so the Re-read Saturday news is a week out of date.  This week we talk about Chapters 22 and 23. I have declared that last weekend was a very stressful vacation from posting.  Now the show goes on! In Software Process and Measurement Cast 409, we feature our essay on advice I recently provided to a listener to the podcast on whether a team is really one or two teams.  While the essay is a result of answering a friend’s question, the ideas in the essay can be applied when you are building any sort of team. Our second column this week features a visit to Jeremy Berriault’s QA Corner.  Jeremy and I discussed how QA should communicate with other leaders in the organization.  In the third and final column, Jon M. Quigley begins a three-part arc on requirements in “The Alpha-Omega of Product Development.” This wee

The Software Process and Measurement Cast 408 features our interview with Kupe Kupersmith. Kupe and I discussed the role of the business analyst in today’s dynamic environment.  It is critical to defining and facilitating the delivery of value. Weighty topics, but we also had a bit of fun. “Kupe” Kupersmith, President, B2T Training, possesses over 18 years of experience in software systems development. He has served as the lead Business Analyst and Project Manager on projects in the energy, television and sports management and marketing industries. Additionally, he serves as a mentor for business analysis professionals. Kupe is the co-author of Business Analysis for Dummies, a Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP®) and a former IIBA® Board Member. Kupe is a requested speaker and has presented at many conferences around the world. Being a trained improvisational comedian, Kupe is sure to make you laugh while you’re learning. For a feel for Kupe’s view on business analysis topics check out his blog on

The Software Process and Measurement Cast 407 includes four separate columns.  We begin with a short essay refreshing the pros and cons of Test Driven Development. Test Driven Development promises a lot of benefits but all is not light, kittens and puppies. Still, TDD is well worth doing if you go into it with your eyes open. Our second column features Kim Pries, the Software Sensei.  Kim discusses what makes software “good.” The Software Sensei puts the “good” in quotes because it is actually a difficult word to define but Kim is willing to give the discussion a go! In our third column, we return to Tame The Flow: Hyper-Productive Knowledge-Work Performance, The TameFlow Approach and Its Application to Scrum and Kanban published J Ross (buy a copy here). We tackle Chapter 10 which is titled The Thinking Processes. Thinking processes are key to effectively using  Agile, lean and kanban processes.   Gene Hughson anchors the cast with an entry from his Form Follows Function Blog.  In this installment, we discus

The Software Process and Measurement Cast 406 features our interview with Erik van Veenendaal.  We discussed Agile testing, risk and testing, the Test Maturity Model Integrated (TMMi), and why in an Agile world quality and testing still matter. Erik van Veenendaal (www.erikvanveenendaal.nl) is a leading international consultant and trainer, and a recognized expert in the area of software testing and requirement engineering. He is the author of a number of books and papers within the profession, one of the core developers of the TMap testing methodology, a participant in working parties of the International Requirements Engineering Board (IREB). He is one of the founding members of the TMMi Foundation, the lead developer of the TMMi model and currently a member of the TMMi executive committee. Erik is a frequent keynote and tutorial speaker at international testing and quality conferences. For his major contribution to the field of testing, Erik received the European Testing Excellence Award (2007) and the IST

Software Process and Measurement Cast 405 is a cornucopia of topics!  We begin by exploring a bit of the psychology of change in four short essays. These topics are important for any change agent at any level to understand. Change at any scale is not an easy task. Change requires establishing a goal, recruiting a sponsor, acquiring a budget, developing a set of plans and then there is the part where the miracle happens and people change. The last step is always the hardest and is often akin to herding cats. Psychology and sociology have identified many of the reasons why people embrace change and innovation in different ways.   Our second column is from Jon M. Quigley.  We have settled on a name for the column, “The Alpha-Omega of Product Development.” In this month’s column, we discuss using metrics to dispel assumptions. One item we discussed was using planning poker to expose assumptions and then to find tactics to address them. Anchoring the cast, Jeremy Berriault brings the QA Corner to the Software Proc

Software Process and Measurement Cast 404 features our interview with Ryan Ripley.  We discussed The Business of Agile: Better, Faster, Cheaper at Agile. We discussed why having the answer for whether Agile is better, faster and cheaper is still important in the business world. Along the way, we wrestled with the concept of value and why having value sooner is not the same as going fast.   Ryan Ripley has worked on agile teams for the past 10 years in development, scrum master, and management roles. He’s worked at various Fortune 500 companies in the medical device, wholesale, and financial services industries. Ryan is great at taking tests and holds the PMI-ACP, PSM I, PSM II, PSE, PSPO I, PSD I, CSM and CSPO agile certifications. Ryan lives in Indiana with his wife Kristin and their three children. He blogs at ryanripley.com and hosts the Agile for Humans podcast. You can also follow Ryan on twitter: @ryanripley   Re-Read Saturday News This week we continue our re-read of Kent Beck’s XP Explained, Second Ed